


this is a love song

by orphan_account



Category: Dungeon Fighter Online (Video Game)
Genre: Amputation Kink, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Touching, Yandere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 02:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9526922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: I will sing it to my heart's content and you will listen to it, here, in the cage of my arms.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Soros - Male Slayer  
> Nile - Male Gunner  
> Lila - Female Mage  
> Rikaka - Female Fighter

**_(There exists a love song_ **

**_more beautiful, than anything.)_ **

It starts with a cough.

Innocuous, easily ignored. Until Soros can’t stop.

Lila tries magic. Rikaka tries Suju herbs and remedies. They call help from other guild members, from Saints, from the Empyrean army but nothing helps.

Soros continues to cough until he’s wheezing. He coughs until he’s doubling over for breath. He coughs until he can’t even talk. He coughs until he spits out blood and vomits up last night’s dinner.

He grows sicker—and sicker. He begins to waste away, confined to a cot as Ghent rebuilds itself around him.

“I can’t even see the sky,” he whispers with the mournful tone of a man waiting his execution.

Nile sits by his cot and peels an apple. The red skin slips into a wastebasket at his feet.

“It’s blue today,” Nile says, cutting slices of the golden apple into a small bowl. The liquid sloshes against the side every time a slice plops in. They all sink to the bottom. Flower petals of periwinkle blue lazily drift across the surface, eventually obscuring the slices from view.

Soros watch the petals float, mesmerized. He wonders if he will drift away just like those petals.

He wonders if it will be painless.

Nile smiles, encouraging as he hands Soros a fork to eat the apples. “You’ll get better,” he promises.

Soros observes the clear liquid slosh about in the bowl. It’s like water but more viscous, almost gel-like. It is not the first time Nile has given him apples immersed in liquid but it is the first time Soros has noticed the sweet smell from it.

“It helps to make the apples taste sweeter,” Nile explains even without Soros asking. “It smells sweet because of that.”

Soros’ fork breaks the surface of the liquid and pierces a slice sunk at the bottom. He pulls it out and the fruit is almost liquid gold before his eyes.

He bites into the slice and it tastes candy-like in it’s sweetness.

“Good?” Nile asks, still smiling.

Soros swallows and the sweetness lingers on his tongue, in his throat.

“Good,” he answers and Nile’s smile widens.

“I’ll bring some more tomorrow,” Nile promises and Soros briefly contemplates telling him not to bother.

After all, he might not even be alive tomorrow.

 

**_(Content in your arms,)_ **

****

He still is so Nile brings him more sweetened apples soaked in a water bed of flower petals.

Soros eats them because they are the only thing he can stomach now.

He keeps eating them, even as the apples grow too sweet and become rancid in his mouth.

“Is it good?” Nile asks, even as he peels another apple, as he pours more of the viscous liquid into a bowl and soaks the fruit in it.

Soros swallows down the lingering taste of corpse. “Yea,” he lies and watches the lazy swirl of petals in the bowl.

 

**_(I listen.)_ **

****

“Promise me you won’t give up?” Lila begs, near tears. She clutches Soros’ hand in her own tiny ones and does not let go. “I’ll research everything there is healing magic in Pandemonium. Miss Kate is one of the most skilled mages there, she’ll definitely help me find an answer. So you have to promise me, Soros. Promise me you’ll live.”

Soros wants nothing more than to die. But Lila loves him enough to leave her adventures behind for him. Rikaka too, is searching all of Arad for help. Her entire guild is helping her, even knowing nothing about Soros.

He owes them at least this much.

“Promise,” he says and squeezes Lila’s hands.

Lila beams through her wet eyes. It’s then that she notices the smell and her nose wrinkles.

She looks towards the bowl sitting on the low table by Soros’ cot. “What is that?”

“Apples,” he tells her. “Nile brings them for me.”

“They smell rotten.” Lila leans over to better see the apple slices soaking at the bottom, partially hidden beneath the veil of petals that cover half the surface. “Are you sure they’re safe to eat?”

Soros doesn’t tell her it’s the only thing he can eat now, that not even water tastes right going down his throat anymore. He has to drink the liquid instead when he gets thirsty.

“It’s a thing they do with food in Empyrean,” he says instead.

Lila’s nose further crinkles. “Mister’s never told me about this. I’ve never even seen him do this to any of the food we eat here.”

Soros shrugs. “Maybe it’s just a thing they do with apples.”

 

**_(It exists in the place where our hands connect,)_ **

****

The day after Lila leaves for Pandemonium, a stranger visits Soros.

It’s a Raven, one with long white hair. A cigarette dangles between his lips, a common sight among the class and Soros’ room immediately fills with the smell of the smoke.

“So you’re Soros,” are the first words the Raven says. His eyes appraise him but Soros sees no pity, only curiosity. “My whole guild’s been searching for a way to get you back on your feet for weeks now.”

Soros’ eyes widen. “You’re…”

The Raven inclines his head. “One of Rikaka’s friends, and a guild officer of her guild. You can call me Vicious.”

Vicious strides over to his cot, a trail of cigarette smoke following him.

“Why come see me?” Soros asks. He wonders why Vicious would bother coming to see a dead man but he lets Vicious settle himself down by the cot, close enough for Soros to smell the tobacco that clings to him like a second skin as it does with all Ravens.

“I was curious.” Vicious studies him, eyes narrowed as he takes in the pallor of Soros’ skin, the thin arms and the sunken cheeks. “You get sick almost immediately upon arriving in Ghent, but you’re the only one. The rest of your party’s fine and you never get better. Only worse.”

His eyes land on bowl.

(It’s become an almost permanent fixture next to Soros now. Nile comes in every day with fresh apples and liquid now, always so happy when Soros eats them.

Soros can’t tell him that he doesn’t taste anything anymore. Not even the rot reaches him anymore.)

His eyes widen and he immediately lunges towards it. The liquid sloshes, noisily as Vicious brings it up to his nose.

There’s surprise, then his eyes darken and he’s bolting out of the room, bowl clenched tightly in his hand.

“What—“ Soros reaches out, too slow to even grab the end of Vicious’ long coat before the other is out the door. There’s noise, something like a thump as if something had been tossed to the ground.

When Vicious returns, his hands are empty.

“You were ingesting Ered Yan,” Vicious tersely tells him, before Soros can even open his mouth. “It’s a highly illegal substance from the Lawless District, only found on the black market. It destroys your body and makes you physically dependent on it, even when you're so far gone you can’t even taste anything anymore.”

Vicious sharply inhales around his cigarette. “Who’s been feeding you that drug?”

 

**_(in the cold chain around your neck.)_ **

****

Soros thinks he should scream.

He feels his hands shake where they rest on his blanket and he hasn’t stopped trembling since Vicious had left again.

He had only stayed long enough to hear Soros utter Nile’s name before leaving, promising to get someone else from the guild to watch over him in the meantime.

Soros doesn’t hear him. He can’t hear anything right now.

His entire world has shrunk to the cot, to his shuddering, shaking body that has forgotten how to even breathe.

He wants to scream, but nothing comes out.

The door to his room creaks open.

Soros looks up, expecting to see another stranger at the door. He half-hopes it’s Vicious coming back to tell him it was all a cruel joke and laughing when he sees how shaken Soros is.

Nile stands at the door, an apple in hand. “I brought you something to eat.”

He’s smiling.

 

**_(In a dream.)_ **

****

“I didn’t want to do this, at first,” Nile quietly confesses.

He strokes the meat of Soros’ thigh, his thumb drawing lazy circles in the skin.

“I thought I’d feel nothing but sad if I ever saw you this weak, this helpless,” he continues. “I knew that after you nearly dying in Pandemonium, I had to do this. To keep you safe. And after watching you grow sick in Ghent, seeing how dependent you became on me—I couldn’t help but find it endearing. I didn’t think I could find you anymore lovable but I was wrong.”

Nile smiles, small but happy and it reaches his eyes, making them shine like the finest emeralds. “I love you, Soros.”

Caged in his lap, Soros gurgles something incoherent. Something bumps against Nile’s chest and he looks down, fondly, at the handless stump that is now Soros’ right arm. His smile grows when Soros’ left arm joins, two handless stumps resting against him.

Nile continues to stroke Soros’ thigh. He enjoys how he can feel the tensing of muscles beneath his palm as Soros attempts to kick his legs even when they too, are nothing but stumps.

(Soros doesn’t need his hands and feet. He just needs to stay in Nile’s arms, in his lap where his arms can reach Soros and hold him tight.)

Nile kisses Soros’ sweaty forehead, utterly in love. “We’ll be together. Forever.”

**_(There exists a love song,_ **

**_more beautiful than anything.)_ **


End file.
